Plex Partners With Tidal, Adds Music Service to Its Media Center App

By Janko Roettgers

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Media center app maker Plex has struck a partnership with Tidal to add the music service to its app. Paying subscribers can use to mix the service’s 60 million tracks with their own personal music library, and access it on a growing number of devices that Plex is already available on.

The partnership also brings Tidal’s 244,000 music videos to Plex, where they can be watched by paying subscribers. And Tidal’s music is integrated seamlessly into Plex, where it appears just like any other music library. This enables users to make their own playlists consisting of both Tidal tracks and personal MP3s, and also allows the service to generate Tidal music recommendations based on a user’s personal music library, add many more tracks to Plex’s artist radio and more.

A Plex playlist mixing personal media with Tidal’s online library.

“The addition of Tidal’s music streaming service within Plex makes it the only solution that organizes and curates all major media types in one place,” said Plex CEO Keith Valory in a statement. “It’s another step closer to making all the media that matters to you accessible from one app, on any device, anytime.”

Plex and Tidal are looking to sweeten the deal with a number of perks and discounts for both existing Plex users and Tidal subscribers: Paying Plex Pass subscribers get to sign up for Tidal’s premium tier for $8.99 per month, as opposed to the regular $9.99 price.

More importantly, Plex is also giving Tidal subscribers a number of incentives to try Plex. Tidal Premium subscribers get free access to Plex’s premium music features, as well as its full mobile app. And anyone shelling out $19.99 per month for Tidal HiFi, the service’s HD music tier, gets a free Plex pass, which includes perks like Plex’s DVR service and premium photo library features.

To integrate Tidal into Plex, the startup ended up upgrading the audio engine within its mobile apps. This upgrade includes support for lossless and gapless playback — features that the company intends to bring to all Plex users, regardless of whether they pay for Tidal or not.

At launch, Tidal will be available within Plex’s mobile and web apps. Support for Android TV is coming next, and Apple TV is supposed to follow soon after.